Nissan halts production of all passenger cars in Japan

Nissan Motors in its homeland of Japan has announced that production for all passenger cars in all six factories will be stopped entirely for the coming two weeks due to inspection line issues and faults. Yikes.

The country’s second largest automaker announced today that it’s halting domestic productions for its passenger cars at all of the six manufacturing plants for the coming two weeks. This comes after Nissan admitted that non-certified technicians continued performing final vehicle checks on new passenger cars, even after it said that it had strengthened the control of its inspection processes when the issue first came alight last month.

The entire issue has caused a major recall of over 1.2 million new passenger cars sold domestically in Japan for the past three years. The company added on Thursday that another 34,000 additional passenger cars will be re-inspected.

The issue has drawn shame on the company, along with another issue of the data falsification scandal of the materials partner, Kobe Steel. This further raises the question of compliance and quality control of all major Japanese car makers and manufacturers.

Japan’s Transport Ministry said that it had discovered non-certified technicians at the manufacturing plants producing Nissan vehicles using the stamps of certified technicians to sign off the vehicles during the final inspections.

As a result, Nissan has recalled their vehicles to re-do final inspections on major issues such as steering radius, braking and acceleration capabilities. This would cost the company a total bill of 25 billion yen (MYR940 million).

While Nissan has said that the mismanagement has no impact on the quality of their cars, it has made us wonder if the quality control and rules are followed closely during production of cars and how badly it will hit the company’s reputation back at home.

International production continues

Nissan will continue to produce cars for the international markets. Cars like the Rogue (X-Trail), Altima (Teana) and the all-electric LEAF will be continuing production as the certification process doesn’t apply to cars which will be shipped overseas.

As for the Kobe Steel company which happens to be the third-largest steelmaker in Japan, admitted this month that it had falsified specifications on the strength and durability of aluminium, copper and steel products. This scandal may have stretched as long as the past 10 years.

Header pic: Nissan Motor Co. Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa bows at a news conference at the company headquarters in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo October 19, 2017. Credit: Kyodo/via REUTERS.